Tobacco Road - Erskine Caldwell [36]
“What you doing that to me for?” he said. “I ain’t never had that done to me before.”
“Me and you is going to get married, Dude. Don’t you know that?”
He walked around behind her, looked at the back of her head, and came back in front again.
“When is you going to get a new automobile?” he asked.
“Right away, Dude. We’re going to Fuller right now and get it.”
Dude was more excited over the prospect of driving a new automobile than he had ever been about anything in his whole life. The automobiles he had seen had all been old ones like Jeeter’s, except the ones the rich people in Augusta drove. He could not make himself believe that he was actually going to drive one like those he had seen in the city. He wanted to start for Fuller without another minute’s delay.
“Come on,” he said. “We ain’t got no time to lose.”
“Ain’t you glad we is going to get married, though?” she said. “It’s going to be real nice, ain’t it, Dude?”
The rest of the Lesters had followed them to the front yard, and they stood by the corner of the house waiting to see Dude and Bessie leave for Fuller. Ellie May followed them down the road for about half a mile before she turned around and came back to the house.
Dude walked in front, and Bessie followed him several yards behind. When they reached the top of the first sand hill, they stopped and looked back at the Lester house to see if Ada and Jeeter were watching them. Bessie waved her hand until Dude told her to hurry up so they could get to Fuller.
The long walk to Fuller took them nearly two hours, because Bessie had to stop several times and rest beside the road. The sun was hot by that time, as it was nearly ten o’clock when they left the Lester place; and it was difficult walking through the deep sand, especially for Bessie. In some places the sand was a foot deep, and her feet sank down so far that the sand ran down her shoe tops. Dude would never sit down and wait for Bessie to get ready to start walking again. He waited several hundred feet away, urging her to hurry.
Dude had started out walking slowly enough for Bessie to keep up with him; but as they got closer to Fuller, Dude could not hold himself back. He ran ahead several hundred yards, and then had to walk back to meet Bessie. He would have gone on to town without her, but he did not know what to do when he got there. He was afraid, too, that if he got out of Bessie’s sight she might turn around and go back without buying the new automobile.
Neither of them talked the whole time. Bessie hummed a hymn to herself, occasionally raising a note to the shrill pitch she liked so much, but she did not try to talk to Dude. They were too engrossed in their own thoughts to talk.
Chapter X
DUDE WAITED OUTSIDE the garage and looked at the new automobile on display in the show window. Bessie had gone inside. Dude had said he would stay on the street and look through the window a while.
Bessie waited in the middle of the floor several minutes before any one came out of the back room to ask what she wanted. Presently a salesman walked over to her and asked her if she wanted anything. He noticed that there was something unusual about her nose the moment he first saw her.
“I came to buy a new Ford,” she said.
The salesman was so busy looking down into her nostrils that he had to ask her to repeat what she said.
“I came to buy a new Ford.”
“Have you got any money?”
He glanced around to see if any of the other men were in the room. He wanted them to take a good look at Bessie’s nose.
“I’ve got enough to buy a new automobile if it don’t cost more than eight hundred dollars.”
He looked up into her eyes for the first time. It was hard to believe from her appearance that she had as much as a penny.
“How’d you get it?” he said.
“The Lord provides for me. He always provides for His children.”
“He ain’t never sent me nothing, and I been here thirty years now. You must be on the inside some way.”
The salesman